About ...

So
here I am building this website about image
manipulation and
graphics and digital art and I have
no discernible artistic ability at
all ...

Hi - my name is Richard and it's true that my artistic ability is
pretty much limited to drawing passable
stick men and sadly, that's the pinnacle. I readily admit to
being an
artistic peasant ...

So why the heck would I have a site dealing with image manipulation and
graphics and digital art ...?

Well,
it's because a Graphics tablet (like the Wacom products I refer to
throughout the site) level the playing field, so to speak, for artistic
peasants like me and I just had to tell the world about them.

The
thing about a graphics tablet is this - I discovered that I didn't need
incredible artistic ability to produce great results - what I needed
was the willingness and
ability to learn techniques
and suddenly I can do things with pictures that get
ooohs and aaaahs
from people - and that makes it all worthwhile!

More Information
Than You Need

So here I am in Mississauga, Ontario Canada with my three dogs (ya - 3)
Max and Tabitha and Libby. If you have been on a few of my
pages you have seen pictures of them, especially Tabitha.

I have always been attracted to the Bull breeds and now my house is
overrun with them!

Max is a 7 1/2 year old Staffordshire Bull Terrier and he is probably
the
most level headed and mellow dog I have
ever had the
pleasure of living
with. Some folks think he looks fierce - ha - he is a sweet
and mellow guy who loves to play and and insists on his nightly
"walkies".

In the neighborhood he's knows as Max
the wonder dog ...

Me and Max were doing quite well and had no plans to add another canine
to the family and then along came Tabitha.

My ex-wife (Dawne) wanted a Mini Bull Terrier after losing her standard
Bully a
couple of years ago (the minis are more portable). We found a breeder
who had a red adult
female Mini who was looking for a home and after a whirlwind visit
(less than 24 hours from initial contact to adoption) she became the
happy owner of Ruth. The one proviso was that Ruth had to
have a litter of pups for the breeder.

That was OK with Dawne and after a few months Ruth had a litter of 7
wriggling little Mini pups. Dawne wanted the one with the
black eye but the breeder said that particular female was the pick of
the litter and she was going to keep her so Dawne chose another pup.

On one of our visits to see Ruth and her babies the breeder commented
that the little black eyed
girl (Tabitha) was not developing as well as she would like so little
Tabitha was
going to be sold. Dawne got all bleary eyed and blurted out
"Rich will take her ..." which came as a complete shock to me!
And that is how Tabs came into our lives. She was a real
terror as a baby but has turned into the sweetest and nicest little
girl. She has been to some dog shows and actually won Best of
Breed at one of them - I couldn't be more proud!

I was going to breed Tabs but my little princess has a bit of a heart
murmur and that is not a good thing to pass on to new generations of
miniature Bull Terriers.

Back to Ruth (are you getting all of this) - she had another litter and
once again we visited the breeder to see mom Ruth and the babies.

It turned out that there were some serious human family problems
and the breeder asked if I would "foster" little Libby for a couple of
months - ya, sure.

That was in September of 2008 and little Libby is still with us.
Libby is a tiny, opinionated ball of fire!

She is the one whose tail is
always straight up in the air because she
is totally convinced she is the boss of the house so me, Max and Tabs
are working to set her straight.

It seemed, right from day one when she arrived at six weeks of age that
her mantra has always been "You're
not the boss of me ...!"

She is learning her lessons - slowly but surely. Libby's attitude means
I have to channel my inner Dog Whisperer - a lot!

They keep me busy but I love them all and we have a fun time together.

Between my three dogs and my site I manage to keep myself quite
busy. The site work has to wait until the late hours of the
day
as my dog pack are going until about 10:00 pm!

After they settle down - I can settle down and do some work on a page
or work on a video.

My Site

The
site really started because I found that many people who already owned
a tablet had no idea how to set things up correctly. I
decided to
set up a simple 3 or 4 page site to explain things about

the tablet drivers, and

setting brushes so they would react to pressure

Well - you know how things go, right? The simple little 3 or
4 pages is now over 140 and continues to grow. There are a
few reasons why I keep at it so consistently ...

It is fun to do - and it is important to have fun!

The feedback from the videos and the comment page
have been great.

The actual process of building, uploading and
managing my site is absolutely seamless.

I am generating extra income and that is an amazing
bonus - and the income continues to grow each month. How neat
is that?

Now maybe you are thinking about building your own website - or maybe
not.

If you are then I highly recommend Site
Build It (SBI!)!

You can find out more about the process and why SBI! is just so darn
good right here.

I really appreciate your visit and hope you found an answer to your
digital editing
questions.

I'm Not Artistic!

Artistic ability is not necessary to produce excellent results with a
pen and tablet.

The excellent digital editing programs on this site are all about
techniques to improve digital images.